Ancient Greek temple

Greek temples (Ancient Greek: ναός, romanized: nāós, lit. 'dwelling', semantically distinct from Latin templum, "temple") were buildings made to house statues of gods inside Greek sanctuaries in ancient Greek religion. The inside of a temple was not a meeting place. Sacrifices and rituals for the god took place outside, in the wider area of the sanctuary, which could be very large. Temples were often used to store votive offerings. They are the most important and most widespread surviving building type in Greek architecture. Most Greek temples were oriented astronomically.

In the Hellenistic kingdoms of Southwest Asia and North Africa, buildings used as temples often kept following local traditions. Even where Greek influence can be seen, such structures are not normally considered Greek temples. This applies, for example, to the Graeco-Parthian and Bactrian temples, or to the Ptolemaic examples, which follow Egyptian tradition.

Between the 9th and 6th centuries BC, Greek temples developed from small mud brick structures into large monumental "peripteral" buildings with a double porch and a colonnade on all sides. They often reached more than 20 metres in height, not counting the roof. Their style was governed by regionally specific architectural orders. At first the difference was between the Doric and Ionic orders, but a third option, the Corinthian order, appeared in the late 3rd century. Many different ground plans were developed, and each could be combined with the different orders. Some temples were destroyed in warfare or because they were not repaired. Some, such as the temple of Poseidon Soter (The Savior), were rebuilt outside Athens after the defeat of the Persian Empire in 449. From the 3rd century onward, large temples became less common. After a short flourish in the 2nd century BC, they nearly stopped being built in the 1st century BC. After that, only smaller structures were started, while older temples were repaired or finished if they were unfinished.

Greek temples were designed and constructed using set proportions, mostly based on the lower diameter of the columns or the size of the foundation levels. The almost mathematical strictness of these designs was softened by optical refinements. Although the idealised image of Greek temples is still widespread, they were painted, so bright reds and blues contrasted with the white of the building stones or stucco. The more elaborate temples were equipped with rich decoration of reliefs and sculptures on the pediment. Construction was usually organised and financed by cities or by the administrations of sanctuaries, although private individuals, especially Hellenistic rulers, could also sponsor such buildings. In the late Hellenistic period, decreasing wealth and the gradual incorporation of the Greek world within the Roman state led to the end of Greek temple construction, as Roman officials and rulers took over as sponsors. New temples belonged to the tradition of the Roman temple, which, despite strong Greek influence, aimed for different goals and followed different aesthetic principles (for a comparison, see the other article).

The main temple building sat within a larger precinct or temenos, usually surrounded by a peribolos fence or wall. The whole area is usually called a "sanctuary". The Acropolis of Athens is the most famous example, though it was apparently walled as a citadel before a temple was ever built there. A sanctuary might include many smaller buildings, sacred groves or springs, animals dedicated to the deity, and sometimes people who had taken sanctuary from the law, which some temples offered, for example to runaway slaves.

Development

The earliest Greek sanctuaries probably had no temple buildings, though little is known about them because many were destroyed. A typical early sanctuary was a sacred area, often around a grove, cave, or spring, with an altar for offerings. Rural sanctuaries mostly stayed this simple, but popular ones in cities gradually built a house for a cult image. This was underway by the 9th century BC and probably began earlier. The Mycenaean megaron (15th to 13th century BC) was the forerunner of later Archaic and Classical Greek temples. The simplest temple, the naos, was a rectangular shrine with side walls that stuck out to form a small porch (antae). Adding columns to this basic form led to many different temple designs. The Temple of Isthmia, built in 690–650 BC, was perhaps the first true Archaic temple. Early temples were made mostly of mud and brick, with marble elements on stone foundations, and their columns and roofs were wood. Near the end of the 7th century BC, temples became much longer, such as Temple C at Thermos, though they stayed narrow. Greek architects surrounded temples with a row of columns on all sides (peristasis), which was called a peripteros design, and the building had to look good from every direction. Later, the dipteros, with two rows of columns, was developed on the Ionian island of Samos in the 6th century BC. Between the 6th and late 4th centuries BC, countless temples were built in nearly every polis and Greek colony, as well as at major sanctuaries like Olympia and Delphi.

From the early Hellenistic period, the peripteral temple lost much of its importance, and temple building mostly stopped in Hellenistic Greece and Magna Graecia. A revival came in the 2nd century BC, partly due to the architect Hermogenes of Priene and the wealth of Hellenistic rulers, but Hellenistic religious buildings were mostly small temples and tiny shrines (naiskoi). To give small buildings the look of larger temples, builders developed the pseudoperipteros, which used engaged columns on its walls. In the early 1st century BC, the Mithridatic Wars changed building practices, and few new temples were built. Under the principate, new buildings were mostly temples for the imperial cult or Roman deities. Greek temple architecture ended as the east became more romanised. Under the edicts of Theodosius I, which banned pagan cults, Greek temples were gradually closed or turned into Christian churches. Many remained in use for a long time afterwards. The Parthenon in Athens, for example, was first turned into a church, then into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest, and was badly damaged when a Venetian cannonball hit it while it stored gunpowder.

Structure

Greek temples kept the same basic structure for many centuries. The Greeks used a limited number of spaces to shape the plan and a limited number of building parts to shape the elevation. The central room, the naos or cella, usually held a cult statue of the god. Some Archaic temples had an extra room, the adyton, after the naos, and this continued in Sicily into the Classical period. In front of the naos was a porch, the pronaos, formed by the side walls (the antae) and two columns. A similar room at the back was the opisthodomos. It had no door to the naos, because it was added to keep the temple looking the same from all sides. A row of columns, the peristasis, surrounded the whole building, creating a colonnade called the pteron. This colonnade gave shelter to visitors and room for processions.

Temples came in many plan types. The simplest was the templum in antis, with two columns between the antae (distyle in antis). A temple with a row of columns across its front was prostyle, and one with columns at the back too was amphiprostylos. A temple surrounded on all four sides by a colonnade was peripteral, while the pseudoperipteros showed its side columns only as engaged columns or pilasters. A dipteral temple had a double colonnade. Round temples could be tholoi, or a monopteros (also called a cyclostyle), which had no naos. Vitruvius also counted columns at the front, and the 12-column hall at the Didymaion is the only one called dodekastylos. Very few temples had an odd number of front columns, such as the Temple of Hera at Paestum, the Temple of Apollo at Metapontum, and the Archaic temple at Thermos. The elevation had three zones: the crepidoma, the columns, and the entablature. The foundation, the stereobate, had a smoothed layer called the euthynteria and the stylobate on top. Column shafts had flutings and might sit on a plinth. Doric columns had a hypotrachelion, while the capital with its torus, echinus, and abacus was used with Ionic columns, decorated with an egg-and-dart band and volutes. The Corinthian order had acanthus leaves. The entablature held the architrave and frieze. Ionic temples of the Cyclades and Asia Minor differed, and the frieze used triglyphs, metopes, and intercolumniation spaces. The geison and cornice stood out above, with pediments, the sima, the tympanon, a gabled roof (earlier temples often had hipped roofs), pedimental sculpture, and acroteria. Greek temples stood apart and were designed to be seen from all sides, unlike Roman temples, which were often built to fit a planned town square and viewed from the front.

Design and measurements

Greek temples could be very large. The foundations could reach 115 by 55 m, about the size of an average football pitch, and columns could reach 20 m in height. Builders used a basic unit called the foot, which varied from 29 to 34 cm depending on the region. The width of the columns, the space between them (intercolumniation or bay), and other parts of the building were set in fixed proportions to this unit. These proportions also shaped the stylobate, the peristasis, and the naos. The number of columns on the front and back was linked to the number on the sides, following a set formula. Many Classical temples in Greece (c. 500 to 336) had 6 × 13 columns, and the Parthenon followed the same proportions.

The space between columns became more important in building ideas from around the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, as recorded in the works of Vitruvius. He described five design types based on this spacing, measured in lower column diameters: pyknostyle (1 1/2), systyle (2), eustyle (2 1/4), diastyle (3), and araeostyle (3 1/2). Vitruvius credited Hermogenes with inventing the eustyle type. The Temple of Dionysos at Teos, which is normally attributed to Hermogenes, has spacing of 2 1/6 lower column diameters.

Optical refinements

To soften the strict mathematical look and to counter how human eyes see shapes, builders gave the whole building a slight curvature that is hardly visible. Ancient architects had noticed that long straight lines seem to sag toward the middle, so the horizontal lines of the base and the top beams were raised a few centimetres toward the centre. Columns were not simply narrowed in a straight line. They had a gentle "swelling" (entasis) along the shaft, and they were placed with a slight inclination toward the centre of the building. Curvature and entasis appear from the middle of the 6th century onwards.

The most consistent use of these ideas is seen in the Classical Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis. Its curve affects all the horizontal parts up to the top edge (sima), and even the walls of the inner room (naos) follow it. Its columns lean inward and also have a clear swelling, and this tilt continues into the beam and frieze above. No block was cut as a simple straight block, and each one differs slightly from a right angle, calculated separately. Because of this, every preserved block can today be matched to its exact place. Despite the huge extra effort, the Parthenon, including its sculptures, was completed in a record sixteen years (447 to 431).

Decoration

Main article: Metope

Main article: Frieze

Main articles: Pediment and Pedimental sculpture

Further information: List of Greco-Roman roofs

Greek temples were mostly white, with only three basic colours used: blue, red and sometimes black. Only small details, such as the grooves at the bottom of Doric capitals (annuli) or the decorative parts of Doric architraves (taenia and guttae), were often painted in other colours. Paint was mostly used on parts that did not hold up the building, while columns were left unpainted or covered with white stucco. Temples were often decorated with figures. The reliefs on the frieze and the pedimental triangles often held sculptures. Ionic temples in Asia Minor did not have a separate frieze, so their Cycladic and Eastern Ionic temples used a continuous frieze for relief decoration.

The metopes each showed a single scene that was part of a larger story, often a battle. The metopes on the Temple of Zeus at Olympia showed the Twelve Labours of Heracles, and the Parthenon showed battles against centaurs and Amazons. Ionic friezes also often showed battles, and the 160 m long frieze on the Parthenon showed a calmer scene of the gods and a procession. Special care went into the pediments, which often showed myths linked to the place where the temple stood, such as the story of Pelops and Oinomaos at Olympia. Roofs were crowned with acroteria, which could show griffins, sphinxes, and deities such as Nike. Some Ionic temples also had columns with relief decorations at their lower parts.

Function and design

Main article: Ancient Greek religion

The main job of a temple was to hold the naos, the "dwelling" of the cult statue. The outside of the temple was made grand to show how important the naos was, while the naos itself was often plainly finished. By Roman times, though, many had become crowded with other statues, military trophies and gifts. Usually the only light came through the front door and from oil lamps inside. Some temples, such as those of Apollo at Bassae and Athena at Tegea, had an extra door that let in more light. Temples in the Cyclades often had marble roofs, as did the temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Parthenon in Athens, so their light may have been soft and spread out. Most temples faced east toward the rising sun, and the west was seen as the entrance to the Underworld. A few exceptions, such as the west-facing temples of Artemis at Ephesos and at Magnesia on the Maeander, or the north-south temples of Arcadia, may be linked to how people worshipped there. The cult statue usually showed the god, roughly life-size, made of wood, marble or terracotta in early times. The most famous ones were chryselephantine statues, made with ivory and gold, such as the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and Phidias's Athena Parthenos in the Parthenon. Both are now completely lost. Other kinds included the acrolith, a wooden body with stone or other parts, the xoanon, a simple wooden image, and bronze statues such as the Piraeus Athena. Many known Greek statues, like the Apollo Barberini, were originally temple cult images.

Inside, the cult statue was often placed in line with an altar at the front of the temple. Early temples had one row of columns down the middle, but later ones often had two rows to the sides, leaving a central aisle that was made to stand out. Some temples used Corinthian capitals in their naoi or added a third row of columns, as at the Parthenon and the temple of Zeus in Nemea. The temple of Aphaia on Aegina had two tiers of columns. Some famous temples, including the Temple of Zeus at Olympia and the Temple of Asclepius, Epidaurus, had shallow pools of water or olive oil on the floor, which may have helped with humidity and made the light reflect. Visitors were usually expected to make a sacrifice or gift first. Scholars now say that access rules varied from place to place, and some temples were only open on certain days or to certain people. Pausanias described many visits to cult images during his travels in Greece. Some temples were limited to certain groups, such as Dorians in some places. Inside, a special space called the adyton could hold the cult image, especially in Magna Graecia. Many votive offerings filled the naos over time. The back room, the opisthodomos, usually stored cult equipment and sometimes the treasury of the Delian League. Columns along the outside, the peristasis, were used to display or store gifts, and sometimes for processions or shelter from the weather.

Sponsors, construction and costs

Greek temples were usually paid for by one of two kinds of sponsors. Public sponsors included the groups and institutions that ran important sanctuaries. Wealthy private sponsors, especially Hellenistic kings, also paid. Money came from taxes, special charges, or the sale of raw materials like silver. Donations were also collected, especially for large sanctuaries like Delphi or Olympia. Hellenistic rulers could also pay for public buildings in cities outside their own lands, such as Antiochos IV, who ordered the rebuilding of the Olympieion at Athens. In such cases, the money came from the donor's own treasury.

Building work followed set steps. After an assembly approved a project, contracts were advertised, and a committee chose the best plan. Another committee supervised the work, awarded contracts, inspected finished parts, and paid wages. The winning contractor was usually the one offering the most complete service for the lowest price. For public buildings, the sponsor usually supplied the materials. Costs could be very high. Records show that a single column in the rebuilding of the Artemision of Ephesos cost 40,000 drachmas. A worker was paid about two drachmas, so this equals nearly two million euro at a modern western European wage scale. With 120 columns planned, the total cost would have been like that of major projects today, about 360 million euro.

Temples of the different architectural orders

Greek temples can be sorted by the Classical order chosen as their basic style. This choice was rarely completely free. It was usually decided by tradition and local habit, and it led to very different design rules. The three main orders are the Doric order, the Ionic order, and the Corinthian order, so temples are often grouped as Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian.

Doric temples shape the modern picture of Greek architecture because many of them are well preserved. Ruins in Southern Italy and Sicily, such as those at Paestum, Akragas, and Segesta, were visited by western travellers early on. The Hephaisteion and the Parthenon in Athens also influenced scholars and Neoclassical architecture. Doric temple building began early in the 7th century BC, and the style was fully developed by about 600 BC, when builders switched to stone.

Main article: Jandial

Surviving remains

Main article: List of Ancient Greek temples

Greek temples were very solidly built, but apart from the roof, few have left large remains. Many were converted into churches or mosques, which often kept them standing. Some platforms and round column drums are still fairly complete, since these were harder for later builders to reuse. Sometimes fallen parts were set back up, a practice that is anastylosis and is somewhat controversial. Rectangular wall blocks were usually carried away for reuse, and some buildings were destroyed or weakened just to get their bronze pins. Marble sculpture was often removed to make lime for mortar. Any sculpture that survived was usually moved to a museum, not always a local one.

The most complete remains are in Athens and southern Italy. Athens has the Parthenon and the better preserved Doric Temple of Hephaestus, both of which were once churches. It also has two small temples on the Acropolis and a corner of the large Corinthian Temple of Olympian Zeus. The small temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae survived in a rural place, with most of its columns and main blocks still in place. British antiquaries took the Bassae Frieze from it in 1812, and it was soon in the British Museum. In Italy, Paestum has three early Doric temples in a row, among mostly Roman ruins. In Sicily, the Valle dei Templi near Agrigento has an even larger group, and the Temple of Concordia is especially well preserved. Selinunte was destroyed about 250 BC by the Carthaginians and has five tumbled temples, and one has been rebuilt from the original material. Nearby, Segesta has a single Doric temple whose main structure is largely intact.